Lawsuit Blames Property Owners

Landlords May Be Held Liable For Not Alerting Tenants In Rape Case.

June 16, 2005|By Paula McMahon Staff Writer

A Broward jury must decide if the landlords of a Fort Lauderdale apartment complex should be held liable for failing to warn residents that a 9-year-old girl had been raped on the property, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The decision was issued in a civil lawsuit filed by the mother of a 10-year-old girl who was raped by the same man as she walked to school about two weeks after the first attack.

The rapist, Hassan Davis, has since been convicted of both crimes and is serving multiple life sentences. He lived at the Regal Trace apartments in northwest Fort Lauderdale, where both girls resided.

On March 4, 2000, Davis lured the 9-year-old into the meter room at the complex with a promise of toys, then raped her. Sixteen days later, Davis followed the 10-year-old girl as she walked to school, took her into an abandoned building and raped her.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that a Broward Circuit judge was wrong to grant a final summary judgment in favor of Regal Trace Ltd., Milton Jones Development Corp. and Milton Jones Management Corp., the landlords.

The girl and her mother, who are referred to in the decision only by their initials, filed suit against the landlords and several other defendants alleging negligence, including failing to protect tenants from reasonably foreseeable criminal activity and failing to warn them about actual criminal activity on the premises. They said the landlords had a legal duty to tell residents of the first attack.

A flier was distributed after the second assault and the attacker was quickly arrested.

The appellate court ruled Wednesday that because of the special landlord-tenant relationship, the landlords at the complex had a legal duty to warn tenants about the first assault, even if they did not know all the details. That duty applied even though the second assault happened off the property, the court ruled.

"Because a duty existed as a matter of law, it is for a jury to decide whether Regal Trace breached that duty," the appellate justices wrote.

Efforts to reach attorneys for the plaintiffs and the defendants were unsuccessful Wednesday afternoon.

In court papers, the landlords said that some of them did not know about the first assault and that law enforcement told them not to get involved in the matter. The appellate judges indicated they were unconvinced by those arguments.

The 10-year-old's mother said in a deposition that she would have taken additional measures to protect her child and would have had an adult walk her to school if she had known about the first crime.

"You think I'm going to let my daughter walk to school if I know that someone has been attacked at that complex or in the neighborhood?" she said.

Paula McMahon can be reached at pmcmahon@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4533.